Researchers have revealed a radical new type of battery that could charge a mobile phone or even a car in seconds.

Called micro-scale graphene-based supercapacitors, the devices can charge and discharge a hundred to a thousand times
faster than standard batteries.

Made from a
one-atom–thick layer of carbon, can be easily manufactured
and readily integrated into gadgets - and could even lead to far smaller phones.

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The micro-supercapacitors the team created using a DVD burner. They can charge and discharge upto a thousand times faster than traditional batteries

HOW IT WORKS

For any supercapacitor to be
effective, two separated electrodes have to be positioned so that the
available surface area between them is maximized.

This allows the
supercapacitor to store a greater charge.

A previous design stacked the layers
of graphene serving as electrodes, like the slices of bread on a
sandwich. However, this didn't work with electronic cicruits.

In their new design, the researchers
placed the electrodes side by side using an interdigitated pattern, akin
to interwoven fingers.

This helped to maximize the
accessible surface area available for each of the two electrodes while
also reducing the path over which ions in the electrolyte would need to
diffuse.

As a result, the new supercapacitors have more charge capacity and rate capability than their stacked counterparts.

The team say their breakthrough could least to faster charging phones and cars, but also smaller gadgets.

'The integration of energy-storage units
with electronic circuits is challenging and often limits the
miniaturization of the entire system,' said Richard Kaner,
who is a professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA's Henry
Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

To develop their new
micro-supercapacitor, the researchers used a two-dimensional sheet of
carbon, known as graphene, which only has the thickness of a single atom
in the third dimension.

The team also found a way to produce the new batteries easily - using a standard DVD burner.